News

Just now, the Church is thinking quite a bit about children and young people.  

Ever since I read it years ago, I have been gripped by this article, reporting the thoughtful interaction of liberal atheist parents, six year old Lulu, and Archbishop Rowan Williams about  Who Invented God?  

It raises issues not to be dismissed in five minutes. Lulu shows that the fundamental questions are simple enough for children to ask and to shape their life by.  Can the questions be stopped by religious inculturation and indoctrination? And the questions don’t go away with age.   

Would it not be a good thing to devote a whole day to share our understanding of these issues and our practice in relation to them? Or to give ourselves even more time to take this serious matter seriously?  

When his six-year-old daughter, Lulu, wrote a letter to God, journalist Alex Renton did his best to get her an answer. 

An article published in The Times on Good Friday 2011.

My daughter came home from primary school a few weeks ago and sat down to write a letter to God. It read “To God how did you get invented? From Lulu xo ” When she asked us to send it (by setting light to it and putting it up the chimney, as we do with letters to Father Christmas) several courses of action offered themselves.

Easiest of all, for us, would have been to fold the piece of paper and file it in the memory box — Lulu is 6 and hasn’t written more than a dozen letters in her life. Then we would have sat down and told her that God couldn’t be sent her letter or answer the question because, in our view, he didn’t exist. We would have said that he was invented by human beings, because they were rather puzzled by life and death and some other problems in between.

But that wouldn’t do. We (my wife and I, though I’m now going to stop speaking for her) try first to be honest with our children, but to follow that good principle here seemed self-indulgent. Selfish, in fact. In any case, the commitment to myth-busting in our house is already shaky — as shown by the Santa Claus rituals, not to mention occasional worship of the Tooth Fairy and that hideous Easter Bunny. I know people who don’t do Christmas and have stripped their children of the trammels of stockings and carols. But I can’t see the point. For one thing, you’re more likely to grow a teenager who embraces myths and cults, in reaction to rigid parental rationalism. Imagine the stories they’d tell about you to their friends.

More important, the desire to shield your children from delusion and falsehood is easily matched by the one that longs to protect their innocence, to let them learn about the world at a gentle pace and, indeed, learn for themselves, rather than always hand over your notion of what is what. Quite simply, I didn’t want to tell Lulu there was no God, and I could not tell her there was.

Not that that was the end of things to hum and ha about. Lulu’s new interest in the supernatural was eminently natural, of course, and welcome. Less comfortable was how much it was fuelled by her new school, not as an area of inquiry, but as a fact. Ridiculously ill-informed, we had no idea until last August that a state primary affiliated with a church would do quite so much God.

I like the idea of my child learning about the faiths and especially Christianity: it is the foundation of much that is lovely and important in our culture. I’m not revolted by the Bible’s “sinister fairy tales” as are some of the angry atheists of our times; though I, like Christopher Hitchens, did go at eight years old to the sort of boarding school where the book was used by the hypocrites and creeps who ran the place to arm themselves. That wasn’t much of an advert.

The Bible, taken highly selectively, is of course a pretty good introduction to the humanist moral system in which I’d like to see my children play a part. I have a copy of A. C. Grayling’s new “secular bible”: a wonderful enterprise, but it lacks the songs and the stories. No child should be denied Samson and Delilah. Or indeed Jael, the assassin and freedom fighter, with her lordly dish of butter and her sharpened tent peg.

I was happy that the Bible should have a role in Primary 1, but not at all that religious credo and worldly truths should be taught to my daughter as the same thing. Her adored, excellent teachers — thanks to whom she now writes letters — were giving out indubitable information (two and two equals four) with the same weight as the highly dubious (God loves you).

Within a few weeks of school starting last August we found her praying at bedtime. That was rather sweet, on first sight, but then I thought: shouldn’t we have been asked? I felt that the evening ritual of teeth-brushing, story, song and kiss — the most intimate between child and parent — had been rather invaded. And while teaching the habit of praying to God to help one be good is hardly corrosive to the liberties of a six-year-old, I felt already that her moral education had been taken out of our hands and off on to controversial ground. In a small way, I felt she had been insulted. My clever, kind girl didn’t need some unexplained superbeing’s help to be good, nor should she so lightly be invited to pass over the responsibility.

Deep in my gut, I disliked the fact that others were interfering with the mechanisms of her naturally emerging conscience. Offering her the consolations and excuses of religion was one thing, but what when they started with the threats? No child in my charge should have to make moral choices based on the fear of a god’s displeasure, or indeed of the fires of Hell.

And there was a further problem. My sister and her daughter, almost Lulu’s age, died in an accident last year. A beloved aunt went a few months before. While these awful things made no difference to my (lack of) religion — they did throw up the simple question: What do you tell the kids? When inevitably I was asked “Are they in Heaven?” I muttered something like “Lots of people are sure they are in Heaven: they’re in my heart.” I’m not proud of that, though I know I could have stepped up and lied if the full assurance had been required. Under the dubious moral code of my childhood, that would have been OK: a “white lie” to ease suffering.

But when, a few months after that disaster, she came back from school announcing that her grandmother’s recently deceased dog was in Heaven being looked after by St Francis of Assisi, I began to grow tired of nodding along. So when she asked God how he was invented, I cheered my little nascent rationalist. Only one step now to asking who invented God. And: why?

But that isn’t a small step. And then I thought: this isn’t my problem. There are people who believe in God who ought to be able to answer a fellow believer’s question. Some of them are paid to do it. Lulu’s letter is of their making, not mine. If they could satisfy her, I would keep out of it. For the time being.

First, I e-mailed her letter to both her grandmothers, and to some friends who are active Christians, The responses were interesting, and Lulu listened to them patiently. The grandmothers did best, perhaps because they’d faced these questions before. Both said that God did not have to be invented because He was always there, even for people who didn’t feel they needed Him. That He wasn’t actually a person, but “the power of love”. It took courage to have faith in Him, said one.

My Christian friends were less useful, but then they were the wrong people to ask. Of course they had had no trouble giving their children answers when the What is God? question emerged (usually at about six or seven years old). What if they were me? I wondered. One said he had no idea how he would deal with the letter as me, but why not ask an expert? He suggested Rowan Williams, whose writings on faith he admires.

So I sought the views of some of the professionals. After a bit of googling, I e-mailed a Jpeg of Lulu’s letter and a brief explanation to the Episcopalian Church in Scotland, where we live, to the Church of Scotland and to the Scottish Catholic Church. I did not mention my own views. For good measure, I sent it also to the head of theology of the Anglican Communion, based at Lambeth Palace.

I heard first from Monsignor Paul Conroy, of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Scotland. He wrote this: “My reply would be along the lines of ‘God is like us — he wasn’t invented — but unlike us he has always been there. God is like someone we’ve always loved — we don’t remember when he came into our lives because like the people we love who have been there all our lives it’s as if we can’t imagine what it would be like without him’.” It seemed theologically on the button, but not much tailored to the six-year-old mind.

The Episcopalians and the Presbyterians didn’t reply. Lambeth Palace waited a couple of weeks and then asked me to tell Lulu that someone special was going to write to her. Eventually there came an e-mail from “Archbishop Rowan” (Lambeth Palace gave permission for the letter’s reproduction here).

Dear Lulu,

Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.

O boundless Salvation, the whole world redeeming

I was searching for the email address of an old friend, and I found myself in the record of Broadmead  Baptist Church, Bristol, reading a fascinating story, reprinted  from the Officer Magazine of the Salvation Army.   http://www.broadmeadbaptist.org.uk/recordpdf/record201405.pdf

         A quote from William Booth who with his wife Catherine founded The Salvation Army in 1865

GÜNTER AND JEAN

The remarkable story of how the Salvation Army founder’s song united Second World War enemies. Originally from the South of Germany, Günter had the figure of an athlete: blond hair and blue eyes, yet genteel and remarkably humbled. I’m Jacques Roufflet and as a student had newly joined The Salvation Army at Tailfingen, and was encouraged to go to Günter’s house by an older church member who advised, “Günter has a wonderful testimony to share. (I was conscripted in the German Army during the Second World War, but Günter had wilfully signed up). Ask him to tell you about it.”

Born into Bavarian nobility, Günter received the strict education of young men of his rank. As I attentively listened to him, my eyes stopped on a picture that filled me with fear – there, astride a black horse, Günter was wearing with pride and arrogance the uniform of an SS officer. “One November day, after my men had ransacked the Salvation Army hall, I entered the building where flags, Christian newspapers and flyers had been burnt. There was a broken bench on which I could still read ‘He can sav…’. I found some of their hymn books in French and German. The German book also had music, so being a musician I sat at the dust – and ash covered piano and started to play the melody of the first hymn I turned to. “I read the words of the hymn: ‘O boundless salvation! deep ocean of love.’ I stopped playing and thought about the place I was in – broken chairs, smashed windows and swastikas painted on the walls. A crest of The Salvation Army was smashed into pieces, cutlery and plates were scattered on the floor. ‘Where is their God?’ I thought, smirking. I put the hymn books in a box and took them with me to burn later.

I was urgently called back to Berlin the same day, so forgot about the hymn books until the following day when I discovered them along with other books. Fearful of being accused of being part of this ‘strange’ Army, I resolved to throw them in a fire located at the bottom of Landerberg Allee. As I hurried to get to the huge fire I went past a dilapidated evangelical church.To my great surprise, I heard the same melody I had been playing… I went in. Seven French prisoners of war (POWs) were laboriously singing ‘O boundless salvation!…’ and needless to say they were absolutely petrified to see me among them! They were gaunt and filthy – a pitiful sight as they played the melody by candlelight on an awfully out-of-tune piano. They were stumbling over the words of a hymn tune that they couldn’t fully recall.

‘Nicht! No, not like that,’ I said to the pianist in my bad French. I vigorously pushed him aside and started to play the tune. ‘Go on! Sing! Books, in the box there.’ They obediently took books and sheepishly began to sing the Founder’s song, which they finished confidently. “‘Stille Nacht, bitte!’ one of them asked. It was Christmas, so what could I do? I started to play the melody and they sang along in their language and I in mine. As we sang, I pictured my family around the Christmas tree, sharing meals and gifts as a sign of peace and love. As I listened to these French prisoners – my enemies – singing I had the sudden realisation that the unity Germany sought to create in Europe by force, had already been won by Christ though his selfless love and sacrifice. “Unable to contain my emotions and feeling the love of God invading me, I rushed from the church with a heavy heart and tear-filled eyes, taking with me the Salvationist hymn book. “As we sat at the table, Günter filled with barely controllable emotion. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘See the stamp here: This book belongs to Strasburg Salvation Army.’

 Günter continued, “Since leaving that church I hated my life, uniform and political party. With the help of trusted friends I found refuge in Switzerland, where I stayed until the end of the war, went to church and discovered the Bible. Once back in Germany, I settled in Tailfingen and joined The Salvation Army.”

I had forgotten this extraordinary conversation by the time I entered the training college in London in 1972. Two years later I married Yvonne Chislett and as lieutenants we were appointed to Montparnasse, a small corps in the middle of a Parisian quarter. By 1974, I had forgotten this extraordinary conversation with Günter. I and my wife Yvonne were now Salvation Army Ministers at Montparnasse, in Paris. One day, one of my sergeants asked me to visit her brother Jean, a soldier of the corps who was unable to worship regularly. Jean received me in his bedroom as he was bedridden, and struggling to know what to say I talked about the weather. But after a short while Jean told me his testimony. I pulled my chair close and listened to his adventure… “I’ve been a Salvationist all my life,” he said, “but there was a time when I thought I’d lose my faith, but strangely, that time proved to be a blessing. “In 1943, when as a soldier in the French Army, I was made a POW and was deported to Berlin, where the SS didn’t hesitate to beat us up, but the citizens had pity on us and treated us well. Whilst living in a squalid POW camp, and would be delighted to introduce them to me, it was reassuring to meet fellow Salvationists in the middle of this hell, but we kept our meet ings secret, because The Salvation Army had been harassed by the authorities. “Just before Christmas we were particularly discouraged and demoralised. There was no news from France and spending Christmas far from our families was tough. My friend Paul, a musician, had found an abandoned good condition,’ Paul assured us. ‘There’s even a piano. We could go tonight because the authorities are busy burning books.’” When we arrived at the church there was not much left, but fortunately it wasn’t raining because we could see the stars through the roof! There were no doors and no electricity. It was so cold that we weren’t surprised that people were singing and dancing to the heat of the book fire on Alexanderplatz. Paul had a candle with him, but without any music he wasn’t very good on the piano.

We tried to play some well-known hymns to lift our spirits. We played Christmas carols too, but in this dark and sinister place our hearts weren’t in it. Antoine suggested that as we were Salvationists singing the Founder’s song would encourage us, but after the first verse we were only able to hum the second. ‘Lord,’ I cried, ‘we’re losing faith. Give us the strength to sing for you.’ So we tried again. Paul played as best as he could and we sang O boundless salvation! deep ocean of love. “Just at that moment a young SS officer entered the hall. We froze in fear when we recognised the black uniform and cap featuring a skull. He looked at us with disdain; he could see we were only insignificant French soldiers – lost, miserable and stinky. I thought this was the end for us, but instead he threw a box on a table and took a book out if it. He pushed Paul off the piano stool and started to play the music – the first bars of the Founder’s song. We were stunned and didn’t dare sing. “‘Go on!,’ he said. ‘Go on, sing!’ He pointed to the box. Incredible! It was filled with Salvation Army song books in French and German. The first page was stamped: ‘This book belongs to Strasburg Salvation Army’. We each took a book and tremulously started to sing ‘O boundless salvation!…’ We were faltering at first, but by the end we were singing with passion and fervour: ‘And now, hallelujah! the rest of my days shall gladly be spent in promoting his praise…’ The silence that followed was only interrupted by sniffling. “Paul courageously suggested to the SS man: ‘Stille Nacht, bitte!’ We sang ‘Silent Night’ at the top of our voices, but without warning the SS officer stopped in the middle of a verse and hurriedly left the church, taking the hymn book with him. We never saw him again, but we also never forgot that moment when God revealed himself to us in this unexpected way.” As Jean told me his story his face lit up. He reached into his bedside cabinet where he took out an old Salvation Army song book. “Look Lieutenant, I kept the one I picked up.” On the first faded page could still be read: “This book belongs to Strasburg Salvation Army.” As we cried, I told Jean the incredible story of Günter and his conversion

Jean died just a few weeks later. I lead his funeral and went to the service with Colonel Wälly, a retired officer. Shortly before the service the undertaker approached me to share his embarrassment. “The family has put one of your hymn books close to Jean’s heart,” he said, “but it belongs to The Salvation Army in Strasburg.” I replied with a smile: “I know. He’ll take it with him to Heaven. In fact, he’s got an appointment with a German SS officer who has an identical book that also belongs to The Salvation Army in Strasburg. They’ll probably join together to sing O boundless salvation!…’ as we will in this service.” There weren’t many people in the cold church as Jean’s family and friends paid their last respects, but my story about the song book was occasionally interrupted by the undertakers who, heads bowed, were trying to hide their emotions. Touched to the heart, the congregation sang with faith and assurance the Founder’s song.   

               ——————————————————————————————————————

Not being a Salvationist, I did not know the words of the Founder’s Song.   Here they are: 

O boundless salvation! deep ocean of love,
O fulness of mercy, Christ brought from above.
The whole world redeeming, so rich and so free,
Now flowing for all men, come, roll over me!

My sins they are many, their stains are so deep.
And bitter the tears of remorse that I weep;
But useless is weeping; thou great crimson sea,
Thy waters can cleanse me, come, roll over me.

My tempers are fitful, my passions are strong,
They bind my poor soul and they force me to wrong;
Beneath thy blest billows deliverance I see,
O come, mighty ocean, and roll over me!

Now tossed with temptation, then haunted with fears,
My life has been joyless and useless for years;
I feel something better most surely would be
If once thy pure waters would roll over me.

O ocean of mercy, oft longing I’ve stood
On the brink of thy wonderful, life-giving flood!
Once more I have reached this soul-cleansing sea,
I will not go back till it rolls over me.

The tide is now flowing, I’m touching the wave,
I hear the loud call of the mighty to save;
My faith’s growing bolder, delivered I’ll be;
I plunge ‘neath the waters, they roll over me.

And what does it sound like?   You can find many recordings on youtube; I like this one, with its near-global coverage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kLFCNbjHJk